County GOP faces leadership fight in March

Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, November 10, 2001

But upstart Jim Jenkins thinks GOP candidates should be tied to the state and not national platform without question. Vote our way, Jenkins says, or lose ultra-conservative support. Is this a question of needing new blood or political blood-letting?

By Jim Webre

Some 84 precinct chairs and the chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party will be decided with the March 12, 2002, primary.

And for the first time in about 20 years, there may be real contested races for precinct chairs and the county chairmanship.

The battle for leadership of the increasingly dominant Republican Party in Montgomery County parallels the divisions in the party elsewhere — the ultra-conservative wing versus the more moderate, though still conservative, majority.

The label "moderate" makes some Republicans wince. Throughout the past 20 years or more, the far right wing of the Republican Party, supported by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and others, have been blamed for scaring voters away from the GOP in favor of conservative or moderate Democrats who support the right of a woman to have an abortion, for civil rights and affirmative action, as well as a host of other issues embraced traditionally by Democrats.

But the so-called "ultra-conservative" wing of the party, represented here by people like Jim Jenkins, makes no apologies for its rigid stance on "hot button" issues, such as abortion and membership in the United Nations. They would outlaw both if they could.

Since 1964, Dr. Walter Wilkerson, retired family practice physician and conservative in party politics, has headed the party as Montgomery County moved with certain other Texas counties from predominantly Democratic to Republican in political nature.

Once before in the early 1980s, a group of decidedly conservative Republicans challenged the ranks of the rank and file, but that attempt failed to dislodge the leadership.

In 2001, the Republican Leadership Council, headed by Jenkins, a 50-year-old computer systems specialist with offices in Harris County, will challenge Wilkerson.

The RLC is not an official Republican Party affiliate, but it does represent the most conservative group of constituents. The former head of the amorphous RLC was attorney Eric Yollick, who parted with the county Republican Party last year stating the party was not conservative enough in its dealings with nonpartisan elections.

Jenkins claims to have the support of perhaps 20 percent of the current 72 precinct chairs in Montgomery County. When the March 12, 2002, primary rolls around, that number of voting precincts will go up to 84 based on census figures and redistricting. The RLC's mailing list, Jenkins said, has about 1,800 names.

"I doubt they have that many members," Wilkerson said.

Jenkins's claim of 20 percent would amount to about 18 precinct chairs, not enough to change the party leadership, but enough to divide the party in the face of a concerted and united Democratic attack for some offices.

"What we're trying to do is make sure our party supports its own platform. That's our goal," Jenkins said.

Wilkerson, who was on the state GOP committee that drew up the platform that now stands beneath Republican candidates in 2001, said there are planks of the state platform that differ from the national platform and with which he does not agree, despite having compromised to get the document the party has now.

"I didn't approve of a lot of what was passed (at the last GOP state convention)," Wilkerson said. Among those planks that Wilkerson said are unrealistic are a return to the gold standard, national withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement, withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations.

Aside from strict adherence to the state GOP platform, the RLC has involved itself in the controversy over the Montgomery County Hospital District, announcing it was seeking to recruit candidates to run against incumbent board members.

As for its stance, asked if the goal of the RLC in Montgomery County was to either drastically reduce taxes by the hospital district or dissolve the district as a whole, Jenkins said, "Fair enough."

A sampling of precinct chairs in the county reveals clear differences. There are those who say Jenkins's camp is sexist, will not compromise and would play into the hands of Democrats when voters hear the extreme views held by the RLC.

"I am naturally for Dr. Wilkerson," said Billie Davis, chairwoman of Precinct 2 in Conroe. "I have worked with him since 1964, and I just don't find Jim Jenkins credible. He's a one-issue person.

"He feels anyone running for office, whatever the office, should abide by every period, comma and exclamation point in that platform whether they feel comfortable with that or not."

Mallie Davis, Billie's husband and a longtime precinct chair himself, said Jenkins simply does not have credibility. Wilkerson "has worked tirelessly for the party and built it into what we have — a majority in the county and at the state level," Mallie Davis said.

Tom Lancaster, Precinct 4 chairman, thinks Jenkins is right.

"I support a philosophy. I've worked with both of them, and I have great respect for Dr. Wilkerson. But I support the state platform, and I guess that puts me in the ultra-conservative camp," he said.

"Wally (Wilkerson) is tough to get things out of, where he stands on things," Lancaster said. "He doesn't care what other people think. As long as you call yourself a Republican, that's all that matters to him. For the party apparatus to work, it has to hold (candidates) accountable in office. Wally runs away from that political operation." Precinct 3 chairman Tim Smith and Precinct 45 chairman Richard Tramm are two who say they are undecided about who they will support for county chairman in the March primary.

"The news that Mr. Jenkins was running just came to me about two weeks ago," Smith said. "I support Dr. Wilkerson, but I don't know enough about Mr. Jenkins yet to say who I would support."

Tramm, who is also president of the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District board, said he knows both men, but he wants to "talk to both of them before I make up my mind."

The term for those who do not fully endorse and swear by the state platform are RINO's — Republicans In Name Only. In Jenkins's view, one is either a state platform supporter in its entirety and to the letter, or one is a RINO.

"I wholeheartedly support the Republican state platform's preamble as it relates to general issues," Wilkerson said.

The preamble to the GOP state platform includes a general opening paragraph of support for "core values" reflected in a 10-point summary.

The platform itself goes on for page after page, and the particulars of that platform include compromises by moderate Republicans to the far right, including many goals not espoused in the national GOP platform, such as withdrawal from the gold standard, the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, both of which are critical to American interests in times of conflict and international relations.

In general, the Montgomery County Republican and Democratic parties have stayed away from nonpartisan elections and turf battles like Montgomery County Hospital District's management and public-relations problems.

Jenkins says the lack of support by the county's GOP leadership for the dissolution of the Montgomery County Hospital District and its use of tax money for things the RLC doesn't like and removing access to pornographic Web sites from county public library computers are examples of an abdication of leadership on the part of Wilkerson and the current county GOP leadership.

Wilkerson said he supports the work of the RLC and other Republicans in their opposition to pornography, but the policy of the MCRP under his tenure has been to not involve itself in nonpartisan elections.

"It's counter productive to do so," Wilkerson said. "We have a lot of people on both sides of that issue. It makes the job of the party tougher if we become fractured any more than we are at this point."

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The RLC, Jenkins and Van Fleet said, will hold candidates to the state platform and make their influence stronger. Candidates in the upcoming GOP primary who ask for the TRLC'